"AND THE WATERS PREVAILED EXCEEDINGLY UPON THE EARTH" To Noah's dove, hunting an olive leaf, this prospect might have been pleasing; but it brought only grief to the Arkansas farmer, anxious to plant a belated cotton crop. clear idea of the flooded areas from the air, from southeast Missouri down to the Atchafalaya Basin of Louisiana. MOURNFUL BAWLING HINTED THAT EVEN COWS FEARED THE FLOODS Too tired to frisk or "high-tail" it, sadly lowing in bovine perplexity, thousands of cattle were rescued from the lowlands. This herd is being landed at Natchez. Many cattle marooned on levees became so hungry that they ate empty jute bags and old newspapers. "HOLD STILL, SISTER! IT WON'T HURT YOU!" To prevent the outbreak of disease, all refugees arriving at Red Cross camps were required to be immunized. Those submitting here to vaccination are "Cajuns," as Acadians of the Evangeline country of Louisiana are sometimes called. THAT'S A BRAVE LITTLE MAN-HE DIDN'T CRY! To care for casuals, nurses and hospital tents were provided by the Red Cross in all of the larger concentration camps. This young lad, after a minor accident, is having his arm dressed in the refugee camp set up in the Confederate Cemetery at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Even with community singing, under the friendly shade of picnic-ground trees, one could hardly say that washing clothes is a popular form of sport; but in the model Red Cross camp at Natchez these refugee women went happily at their task, singing and chatting as they worked. A "SEAGOING LAWN MOWER" THAT CRUISED OVER TREE TOPS Seeking marooned flood victims, boats as large as this often steamed boldly from the river channel across flooded fields and even over half-submerged tree tops. This craft saved both men and animals from the waters (see, also, text, page 250). with the sunburned crew, boldly declared, "Noah oughta stuck around; he'd a seen. a real flood!" "The most immediate danger," said the skipper of one rescue boat, "was from the crevasses, rather than from the more slow-moving flood behind the levees. One levee break, for example, was at Pendleton, above Arkansas City. When it came couriers raced the lowlands, warning those who had no telephones. At noon the streets of Arkansas City were dry and dusty. By 2 o'clock mules were drowning in the main streets of that town faster than they could be unhitched from wagons. Before dark the homes and stores stood six feet deep in water." It was so at Greenville, Mississippi. Here a crevasse at Stop Landing, above the town, sent 15,000 people scurrying to the levees. So sudden was this disaster that thousands of people huddled on the bare ground of the levees, many without food for two and three days, until aid came. With human refugees came 18,000 head of livestock. Often mules beat men in the race to refuge. In a few hours. these animals had skinned the grassy levee as clean of plant life as a plate-glass window. In their hunger they even devoured piles of empty sandbags. In a big shed near Greenville, when the levee broke, 150 mules and horses were tied to their mangers. So quickly came the flood waters that all these drowned. "We took our launch," said a Memphis merchant who worked at life-saving for six days and nights without changing his clothes, "and went from house to house for miles over the low country, picking up survivors. At Hardin Point we found five negroes in the loft of an old barn, the building ready to collapse and float off. float off. They had not eaten for days. When we handed them bread, they almost literally 'put their feet on it and growled.' They were too weak to stand. We lifted them into the boat. I saw lots of people, even among those on the levees, who had been without food so long they could not stand. "As time passed, more and more rescue boats arrived. So it came that often the LIKE A CATARACT, FLOODS RACE THROUGH CRUMBLING LEVEES On a still night the roar of a big crevasse, like the thunder of a rushing railway train, may be heard for miles. "Over 50 years ago I first heard that dreadful roar," said an old lady who lives under the levee below Baton Rouge, "and I have never forgotten how it sounded." same house would be searched several times in quest of survivors. To avoid this, we agreed that when a house was once searched a red flag, made of calico salvaged from a half-submerged drygoods store, should be nailed to its gable. One house, several miles east of Greenville, had been searched and a red flag nailed to it. Yet, late one evening as a boat passed, shrill cries came from this building. The screams seemed those of a woman in terror. Cruising quickly over to it, the boatmen were amazed to see the heads of four panthers at an attic window." RELIEF WORKERS ARE SPEEDY AND At more than 70 safe, strategic points down the valley refugee camps are set up. Already the Red Cross has housed nearly 500,000 people in tents, warehouses, schools, churches, and other shelter, a number about equal to the resident population of the Nation's Capital. Battling this unparalleled river disaster, the experienced Red Cross works at amazing speed. I saw one instance at Memphis. Word had come at I p. m. on a certain Sunday that a large quantity of food was urgently needed at a point down the river. Within eleven hours. nine carloads had been bought, under competitive bidding; then packed, loaded, shipped down the river bank by rail, and by midnight was being loaded into skiffs and barges for delivery to famishing flood victims. At Vicksburg the refugee camp is pitched high on green hills where long ago Grant fought Pemberton. Here, after threescore years, again long rows of tents are set up, the bugle calls, and armed sentries voice their challenge. But now, instead of the Blue and Gray, you see the Mississippi National Guard. It polices the camps, both black and white, where thousands are sheltered, fed, clothed, and doctored. Twice a day long lines form and march past the food tables (see illustration, page 262). "I'd like to be a refugee at meal time," a National Guardsman chuckled. "They get better grub than us soldiers." |